


To Talk of Many Things

by Celinarose



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alice in Wonderland References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 19:02:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8545450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celinarose/pseuds/Celinarose
Summary: "Find them." She had told him, in barely a whisper. "Find them and you will be safe." Her last words to him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> "The time has come," the Walrus said,  
> "To talk of many things:

A little boy walks down the stony road.  
He treads determinedly, despite the blisters on his feet that wear no shoes.  
The image of his mother's face does not leave his mind for a single moment.  
"Find them." She had told him, in barely a whisper. "Find them and you will be safe." Her last words to him.

* * *

He watches the ships sail by on the flowing river. He reminisces about all the times he would wave to them. They never waved back.  
"One day they will." His mother told him. Now he wonders if that day will ever come.  
Today he doesn't stop. He doesn't wave. It will hurt too much to remember.

* * *

In the dark, when has tried too hard to make a fire, scratching the rocks together until his hands bleed, but no sparks have flamed, he tries to clutch to her memory, holding the old parchment in his hand tighter.  
He feels the red sealing wax, rubbing the pattern with his grazed fingers.  
Odd, how it has become his lifeline.

* * *

He reaches the bustling town. No one spares a glance, let alone a coin for the child in torn clothes.  
A woman sells her produce in a wooden cart. A green cabbage rolls over to the limping boy, stopping near his feet.  
He picks it up.  
The woman looks at him accusingly and snatches it from his bleeding hands.

* * *

He doesn't make it to the palace, collapsing near the yard.  
The guards have no care for abandoned children.  
He is thrown away, discarded as worthless.  
They do not know he has gone home to Wonderland.

* * *

A few days later, a stranger overthrows the king, old and weak and childless.  
They call the newcomer a tyrant, a murderer, a madman. He calls himself a ruler.  
_If only,_ the wind whispers, _if only they had unclasped the little hands, and read the yellowed pages._

**Author's Note:**

> Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax,  
> Of cabbages--and kings


End file.
